


Painting

by StrawberryMilkLoadingScreen



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Shell painting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26351083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryMilkLoadingScreen/pseuds/StrawberryMilkLoadingScreen
Summary: You get a call from Mikey to come over immediately...
Relationships: None
Kudos: 20





	Painting

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: None 
> 
> Social media:
> 
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/MessmerNatasha
> 
> Tumblr: https://strawberrymilkloadingscreen.tumblr.com/

You got the call right after coming home from work. You’d barely stripped out of your work uniform when your phone rang. A quick glance at the phone and you felt all the energy sap out of you at the mere picture of Mikey’s grinning face. You tossed yourself into your bed, and brought the covers firmly around your person. The warmth settled deep in your bones and your eyes fluttered closed. 

“I’ll go tomorrow. If it’s an emergency I’ll hear something explode.”

**Ring!**

**Ring!**

**Ring!**

You groaned and did your best to ignore it. It was after the third round of rings that you leaned over and grabbed your phone off the floor and did your best to whisper, not wanting to wake April up if she was still in the house. “Yeah?”

“It’s an emergency!”

With those simple words you struggled into your jeans, and barely had your shirt over your head before you dashed out the door. A few blocks later and some shimmying you managed to get into the sewer and made your way into the lair.

“What’s the emergency? Someone die? Food poisoning? Need an exorcism?”

Everyone in the lair stared at you for a long moment, and you felt heat creeping up your neck and engulfing your face. You scanned the room until your eyes landed on Mikey’s grinning face sitting under a heat lamp.

“You better be dying. I just got off work. I have my internship with my group in six hours. I haven’t eaten-“

The words are hardly out of your mouth before Raph is plucking you up, and dumping you under the heat lamps. Pizza is shoved on your lap, and a bottle of your favorite drink is rolled beside your knee. “You need to take better care of yourself. Bustin’ in here and not even eating dinner? Are you trying to run yourself into the ground?”

“I mean I’m here aren’t I?”

Leo snickered from his spot and held out a fist which you bumped. “See, they get it.”

Mikey sat up and pulled a box out of nowhere. “Hey, so we were gonna go to this art-con thing tomorrow, and we decided to go ahead and paint our shells. We need an extra pair of hands to help.”

“And you couldn’t wait for tomorrow?”

“It’ll take forever to paint and then dry our shells. We’re full grown turtles, Danger. Not kiddies.”

“… You called me at midnight to paint your shells?”

“Yeah.”

“That is fucking awesome.” You yanked the box, and began digging through it. Paints in every shade, large paint brushes, and several types of glitter were all over the box. “So what type of design were ya’ll going for?”

“I dunno, Raph wanted to do rainbows, and Leo isn’t sure yet, and Donie doesn’t wanna do one.”

You tilted your head back to look at the turtle relaxing in the water. “You didn’t want your shell painted?”

“Ha ha, no.”

You shrugged as you righted yourself and grabbed a bottle of glitter and a paintbrush. “So who am I painting?”

Mikey threw a few cotton balls at Donnie. “You sure you don’t want them to paint your shell, bro? They have glitttter~.”

“For the thousandth time NO.”

Mikey opened his mouth, but you pat his shoulder as you stood up and went over to Raph. “It’s okay, dude. Let’s start on Raph, and then we can get working on you. Fair?”

He grinned and grabbed the box before scrambling over to his brother. Raph had picked a rainbow for his shell, and the two of you diligently worked on it while Leo ‘directed’. It was really shaping up to look like a gorgeous piece, and you were a little jealous you couldn’t just run around with a giant paintable shell yourself.

Lost in your thoughts, you didn’t pay much attention to what you were doing until you felt a hand grab your wrist. You paused and looked up at Leo with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Looks like you cut yourself on Raph’s shell. Might wanna clean that since, you know, we live in a sewer.”

The words hardly left the turtle’s mouth before Raph was spinning around and looking over your wrist in worry. “Seriously- I mean why? I was still!”

You take your hand back gently, and rub the blood off on your paint splattered pants. “It’s okay, dude. It happens. My skin is just pretty fragile for the most part. No worries.”

“I guess? Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can wash it off! We could get Donnie to whip up some kind of super pain killer in the lab.”

“Calm down. Humans can only take so much before their brain fries.” The scientist of the group heaved himself out of the water, and knelt down in front of you to examine it. “Also, this is paint.”

“No wonder it doesn’t hurt.”

You turned back to Raph, only to pout when he took a step back from you. “No offense, but I think I’m good.”

“Awe, I didn’t get to finish.”

“It’s okay, I only got to put the metallics on his spikes.” Mikey gave you a thumb’s up. “I’ll be done in a sec. Maybe start on Leo?”

“I guess.”

Said turtle went over to the heat lamp and laid on his front. “Paint me like one of your French turtles.”

“Like a soup?”

“… Touche.”

You knelt down beside him with some of the paints. “Anyway, what did you want on your shell?”

“Maybe just a few planets. I saw the new comic series for Jupiter Jim today, and it had a bunch of planets and stuff on the cover.”

You grin at that, and decide to start on a fire sun in the middle of his shell. “I thought you hated the reboot.”

“This leaves off Jupiter Jim and the Moon Queen Seven. Not even a reboot. It’s like one of those ‘hidden adventures’-“

Leo went on to ramble for a bit as you painted his shell. His love for nerdy space comics had crept into his adult years, and you found it admirable he had no shame in his hobbies. That went for all the brothers though, if you were being honest. Even if they mellowed out a little in their own ways, otherwise they were still the passionate people you had met during your late teens.

You gave a soft sigh as you finished up Leo and leaned back on your palms as you admired your work. “Looks good. Should dry quick since you’re under the hell lights.”

“It’s freezing, how are these even close to ‘hell lights’.”

“You’re cold blooded, dude. I’m not.”

You wiggled out from under the lights, before stretching out and absorbing the cool leaking through the cracked concrete of the floor. “You want me to paint you next Mikey?”

“You look like you’re gonna pass out. Maybe you should take a nap?”

You grunted when Donnie poked you with one of his extension claw things. “They’re dehydrated too.”

“I’m fine, just need to rest my eyes for a quick second.”

“Didn’t you say we could hit you if you slept flat on the ground again?” Leo asked. “I call dibs!”

You pursed your lips as you remember that tidbit. You had said it in jest, mostly, and were more than a little surprised Leo remembered something you said almost three years ago now. Jeez, where’d the time go? With a soft groan you rolled a few feet away until your body hit the water. Muffled shouting echoed through the water before a pair of hands grabbed you by your torso. You broke the water, and found yourself pressed against something rigid and warm.

“Did you seriously have to be that dramatic? You could have died? Even worse you could have given Raph a panic attack.”

There was probably no reason to be gobsmacked that Donnie of all people had saved you. It wasn’t that he was a cruel or vindictive person. Actually, sometimes you thought he was pretty fucking rad. However, he was what one would call ‘petty’ and ‘preoccupied’ even at the best of times.

You blinked when Mikey poked your nose with a glitter stained figure. “She’s in shock! We should get her to the hospital!”

“Ya’ll I’m fine.” You rubbed the glitter, only for it to transfer onto your hand. “I swear ya’ll are the most ridiculous people I met.”

“Us? You just tried to sleep in water! What are you, a fish?”

You craned your neck back to look Leo dead in the eye. “Would you flush me away if I was.”

You were promptly dropped on the ground as Leo lunged for you, but the scuffling and noogies were totally worth it if it was with the people you called family.


End file.
